


lossfinding

by poalimal



Series: last days of summer [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-08-27 23:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16712185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: My memory of you has never been separate from my loving you, my liking you; my wanting you near me, always.





	1. Sunnyvale, CA

 

It was the second-to-last Monday Movie Night before school started back up, and Derek was _late_. A glance out the window revealed that he was sitting up on the roof in front of his house, flicking his flashlight on and off into the trees.

'Aw, Derek,' said Chris, once he'd scaled the brickside of Derek's house, 'don't do that, you're gonna wake up the birdies!' Derek paused - then he clicked his flashlight off.

Chris tossed himself down next to Derek with a grunt, then he dumped his backpack free of its spoils. 'So I'm thinking tonight's a Thinkin' Night. What do you think are good snacks for Thinkin' Nights? Kettle corn? Pretzels? BBQ?' He made a face. 'Sour cream and onion?' Bleghh.

'Definitely sour cream and onion. It's the thinking man's flavour of choice,' said Derek, after a pause, taking the blue and white bag from him.

The longer Chris looked at Derek's face, the more of him he could see. It looked like-- well, it _sounded_ like... Like he had been crying, maybe. Chris wondered if this had to do with Derek's dad flying back early for work.

Instead of asking, he put on a nasally voice and said, 'What is the square root of a billion and five? Does e _really_ equal mc²? Why do I hate my taste buds so much?'

Derek snorted out a laugh, opening his bag of chips with a rustle. Chris opened his own bag of kettle corn, and the two of them ate in crinkling silence, the only interruption an owl, hooting somewhere deep off into the woods. Chris imagined he was eating a big old pile of smiles, so big you could never get to the bottom.

Then Derek said:

'My parents are getting divorced. I'm moving to New York with my mom.'

'Oh.' Chris's stomach sucked down to his toes. He put the kettle corn down, cleared his throat. 'Ok. Um... I'm sorry.'

Derek nodded, his head still down in his chest.

Divorce meant... divorce meant that Derek's parents would live in different places. But they already lived in different places anyway, 'cus his dad was never home. But what did it mean for Derek? If he was moving again... did that mean he wasn't gonna be in any of Chris's classes this year? And what about the bus? Where was Derek gonna sit on the bus in New York? Who was gonna take the middle seat on the way to soccer practice so he could stare out the window? Who was gonna skate with him to the park, who was gonna trade him for his apple slices, who was gonna switch shirts and shoes with him when his clothes didn't feel right?

'I wish you could stay,' Chris said. His voice went kind of wobbly and cracked, he tried to hide it behind the crumpling of his bag - but Derek threw his arms around him anyway, 'cus that was just the kind of person he was.

'I really wish you could stay,' he said, deep into Derek's shoulder. 'I'm-- I'm gonna miss you a lot. But we'll talk everyday, ok? Everyday.' Dad didn't like it when he or his sisters were on the phone a lot, but he was just gonna have to _deal_ , ok.

Derek squeezed him hard. Chris didn't want to let go. 'People always say that,' said Derek, quiet. 'It's ok if they don't always mean it.'

Derek probably had a lot of experience leaving people behind. He probably had a lot of experience pretending to be ok with it, too. But Chris wasn't like Derek: he hadn't lived all over the world, he wasn't used to leaving friends behind. He didn't ever want to get used to it.

He hugged Derek even tighter. 'Well, _I_ mean it,' he said. Somewhere, hidden among the branches, the owl started to hoot - and an idea began to form in Chris's mind.

'Hey,' he said. Derek burrowed more deeply into his arms. 'Derek. Hey.' Derek sighed deeply, and pulled back, shoulders slack with misery. Chris took in a deep breath, and sucked back in all his snot and sadness.

And he said, 'How much room do you have in your trunk?'

 

* * *

 

The plan was over before it even began.

The movers forgot a box of Derek's baby things, and his mom did not find his increasingly frantic suggestion - that they leave it for Dad to make a shrine out of - particularly amusing. So she opened up the trunk and - of course - found Chris there hiding. Chris started crying, so obviously Derek couldn't start, because one of them had to make their case, and that was when Mr Chow, who had just started wondering where Chris was, came outside and saw Chris sitting in their car trunk crying.

So he started yelling questions, and of course Mom started yelling answers back, and their shouting got so loud that Mrs Chow came outside and had the same shouty reaction, so soon all three of them were yelling at each other.

That was when Derek moved closer to Chris, and then all three parents started yelling at _him_ , and was this his idea?, didn't he know how dangerous dehydration was?, Chris could've gotten really hurt, and they might not have even known until it was too late to do anything, was that what he wanted? For Chris to get hurt?

Derek couldn't help it: he began to sob. 'No!' he said. 'I didn't want to hurt him, I just wanted him with me. I'm su--, I'm su--, I'm su--' Like a skipping CD, he couldn't get past the first part of the word. _I'm sorry_.

' _Don't_ yell at him,' said Chris, hugging him tight against his ribs from behind. 'It was _my_ idea.' Somehow that just made Derek cry even harder. He was never gonna get hugs from Chris, or from his dad ever again, because they'd all be too far away.

They were all gonna be broken apart, everybody, his whole family, from now on. And there was no fixing it so they could all be happy. It was all over.

'C'mon, Der,' Mom said, coming close, 'c'mere, it's ok,' her hand in his hair. 'Hey-hey-hey. We're not mad. It's ok, hon, it's ok. Can you breathe with me? Look at me, Derek.' She crouched there before him, right there on the driveway. 'Look at me-- it's ok, Chris, it's gonna be ok. Can you hand me his inhaler? Breathe, Derek. It's ok. Breathe with me. _Breathe_.'

He didn't remember the ambulance coming. He remembered what it felt like when Chris let go. He remembered looking into his mom's eyes, there in the slanted driveway of his home.

He remembered thinking, Oh. She's scared, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'I thought that was the worst thing that could happen to us, to anybody... I thought I would never see you again. And I didn't see you. For years. Do you remember?'


	2. Queens, NY

 

The door opened, the electronic bell chimed. Deenah pulled her earphones loose. 'Chris!' she said. Her smile faltered. 'You're sick!'

Chris shook his head. 'Not too sick,' he said, muffled through the mask. 'Nothing a lot'ff soup and water won't fix.' Hopefully. He could already feel himself sweating through the back of his sweatshirt. Not a great sign.

'I thought you were going home for New Year's, though?' she said.

Chris tried to feel not too crushingly sad about it. 'Doctors, y'know,' he shrugged. 'Got a refund, at least.' For the plane ticket. 'Cus of the doctor's note.

'What?' Deenah peered at him. 'Chris, are you sure you're ok?'

'I'm fine,' Chris waved her away, turning into the magazine and card aisle. He had, he realised, a pile of snow in his left boot. He looked down and saw that his left boot didn't match his right boot, because his left boot was actually a sneaker.

Ok. Ok. It was fine. 'Where's your dad?' he asked.

'Oh, he's in the back,' said Deenah, raising her voice up at the camera, 'just watching my every move!'

A moment later, Rafiq appeared in the doorway leading to the backroom, silver-haired as ever. 'Deenah, I must ask that you refrain from yelling in the store while customers are present. Chris, hello, how are you?'

Chris shrugged, wincing a bit when Deenah laughed. 'Aw, c'mon, Dad,' she said, 'it's only Chris!'

'A customer is still a customer,' said Rafiq, 'even if we know them.' So much for _practically family_ , Chris thought, turning back to the Hallmark cards.

He tuned out their back-and-forth with only a bit of difficulty. If he let himself lose focus, he knew, the tickle creeping down his throat would slip by too quickly, and he'd start coughing. And if he started coughing, then he wasn't gonna stop.

I Saw This And Thought Of You..., a card said leadingly. Chris kept walking. At the sight of his reflection in front of him he stopped short. He stared so long at the glass doors, and at the tall bottles of water and sports drinks behind them, that he began to feel the wet cold of the snow sinking into his shoe.

\--What was he here for again?

'Good evening, Chris,' Rafiq called, interrupting his reverie. 'I shall see you on the camera, as you browse.'

God, Rafiq was so funny, so weird. 'See ya,' Chris croaked. His stomach tilted insistently. _Soup_. That was what he was here for. Soup. All he had to do, he thought, weaving once more in and out of the aisles, was find the soup, buy the soup, and then he could get back to drowning in his sweat.

The door opened. The electronic bell chimed. A rush of cold air came in and slapped Chris in the face. Deenah said, 'Oh, hello--'

and Derek stepped in. Tall and beautiful in his long black coat, he patted his hair free of snow, glittering impossibly in the yellowed lights of the convenience store near Chris's apartment.

He glanced at Chris - who was frozen, melting - quirked his lips, then turned his attention to Deenah and smiled. The sight of his teeth sunk deep into Chris's chest.

'Hi there,' said Derek. 'I saw your sign outside, happy Chinese New Year!'

'Happy,' said someone, 'New-- cheese.' Was that Deenah? No, that had to be Rafiq. No, Rafiq was in the back. Ok, it was Deenah.

Derek laughed again. He was still so beautiful. It made Chris kind of angry, to be honest. 'I'd love to ask, do you know who drew that?'

'Oh,' said Deenah, 'I-I did. Me. Um.'

'Well, it really pops! You're very talented,' said Derek, smiling. Chris looked at him for a moment more, then turned back to the soup selection. He was just gonna-- get the soup. He was gonna get the soup - and then he was gonna go.

He had two options before him, he saw, blinking sweat out of his eyes. Progresso... and Chuckie Cheese. Wait. What? Chuckie Cheese soup? That didn't feel right. He tried to peer at the cans more closely, but then the shelf itself started to sway. Chris shut his eyes so he wouldn't get dizzy. Instead the maw of nausea swallowed him up slow.

Was he dying? Would it be crazy if he died?

Derek was still talking, he noticed distantly: '--ning the logo for her company. Do you have any graphic design experience?'

'Oh my god, yes!' said Deenah. 'I'm mostly self-taught, but I've actually got a Ko-fi she can look at? If she wants to see my stuff beforehand?'

Ah, thought Chris, tipping backwards, that's awesome. Good for Deenah.

'Oh my god!' said Deenah, rushing out behind the counter. 'Dad! Dad! We need help! It's Chris!'

'--What's me?' said Chris, belatedly, to the ceiling. 'I'm fine. Don't yell.' He noticed a Derek-shaped figure closer now, beside Deenah; and he pulled down his mask and said: 'Hey, Derek.'

The tickle became a cough, a cough Chris tried to hide, a cough which took over his chest. He forced himself upright at the end of it, sighing, so he at least wasn't laying on a bunch of Chuckie Cheese soup cans anymore.

Rafiq was saying something, but what he couldn't understand, Deenah was at the end of the aisle, talking on the phone - and Derek was close now, crouched down beside Chris, close enough that he could reach out and touch his face. He wasn't going to do that, obviously, because that would be weird and pathetic. He shouldn't have even said anything, probably. Shouldn't've moved his mask.

But Derek just touched his face with the warmth of his palms. 'Chris,' he said, 'can you open your eyes?'

Oh, when had Chris closed them? He blinked once, and once again, and once more until his eyes stayed open, and he could see Derek's smile up close.

'There you are,' he said.

 


End file.
